DSE

And like your flawed comments on composition earlier, you're wrong again. Care to go for three? Practice jumps were done prior to the actual launch, in addition to discussion of positioning during the jump. Believe it or not...there is a difference between a guy who throws a camera on his head and calling himself a "skydiving photographer" and an actual photographer who sees things a little differently than the average joe. In this case, there were two folks that look at the world that way. Course', your next comment is that there probably were a lot of photos to choose from or something equally banal (and incorrect). Hazard your next guess as to how many shots were taken on that jump. It's not "spray n' pray" like many photographers seem to do.

Show one other shuttle/wingsuit jump. Ever. Please. Additionally, the staff at USA Today obviously chose the shuttle shot as their favorite, and the National Geo photographer commented specifically on the composition, how the shoreline and water form a triangle, how the shuttle frames the wingsuiters with the waterline, and how it all leads the eye to follow GreyMike. yeah, I'm biased because I'm in the shot. But I'm also a photographer/director by trade, and it's moronic to suggest the photo isn't well composed. You might not like it, that's fine. But to say it's not well-composed is just plain __________whatever.

yeah but Mesquite _AIN'T_ Vegas, if ya know what I mean. You know we got Utah and Kyle, right?

LOTS of threads on this topic already, you might want to do a search

Given how often a DZ in Vegas seems to lose/break/not-maintain their aircraft...wouldn't be too surprising if there were. Given the amount of creativity another DZ in the Vegas area has shown, it wouldn't be out of the question. I'm aware of tandems from heli's, just not aware of any specific tandem/heli jumps in Vegas.

I have zero issue with my EX1, which is more or less in the same size class as this cam. In fact, I'm jumping it for a piece we're doing for Proctor and Gamble this week.

no kidding. You have a GREAT selection. see ya this weekend. Gotta find something else that is a "first" for you. Hmmmm First time wearing my yellow rig? First jump on your new rig? First time in a new jump suit? We'll find SOMETHING

Sony announced two new Japan-only (for now) cams that some folks might be interested in. With CF, the Z5 is perfect for skydiving with large format.

your poll doesn't mention LO's. That'll make a big difference for me in addition to the above. Accomodations in the area are a big consideration, nearness to major airports is another. All costs considered is another. Finally, what it looks like from the air is a big deal to me. If I'm jumping over industrial areas, I'm not terribly excited as compared to jumping over say...Moab, Utah, or the beaches of the Northwest coast, or... etc.

I recommend copying the entire main folder to your drive. You can copy only the BMVD folder over if you want, but having the reference data is a good thing, and if nothing else, works with other NLE systems that support the metadata. Apple currently doesn't, but it's not a big thing at all. Just an added layer of information. FCS is seeing all of it correctly on my system, FWIW, from the video folder.

I deserve the old camera for browbeating Scotty into this (j/k, I already have a 40D, Scotty). Serious kudos to Scotty for pulling this off; if you've never jumped with the shuttle, you'd never realize how frickin' FAST this all happens. The shuttle was pretty well gone from our atmosphere before we'd deployed. Scotty dumped high and got some nice pix, but Mike and I kept chasing GreyMike until a normal pull altitude. It's quite a story, how Scotty pulled this together at the last second (literally), how Grey Mike forced the pilot to allow him to time the exit (he's had prior shuttle experience), and how it all came together. It sure as hell wasn't "just another skydive." It's pretty cool that the USA Today Staff have more or less called it the best shot, by putting it larger than any other image in the magazine, by having staff comment on it... From Richard Nowitz, Travel Photographer of the Year, National Geographic, USA Today.. "This is one of those photos that you can't critique because it's not an ordinary, everyday photograph. To have the presence of mind and to be in that place when the shuttle is going off right between two jumpers...whether he was lucky or not, I don't know. There's a nice design element with the mainline being not-horizontal but diagonal, which creates a nice triangular design. And then the rocket coming off of it acts like a frame for the middle diver with the purple jumpsuit. What else can you say besides I'm glad that he took it (the photo) and not me? This photographer deserves my congratulations." If you're interested, http://www.skydivernetwork.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1197788%3ABlogPost%3A74427, I blogged the event the day we made the jump.

you'll need to make a clone of the card to use in Apple for now. Just copy it to your drive as a complete directory

Either way looks great, you've just got one of "those faces" that works with the style. However...I prefer curly, because it indicates your bouncy, fun personality. Straight is kinda sexy tho.

GreyMike/Mike Mascheff, Burble Mike, and myself.

Nope, I got dibbs already, Phil. Congrats, Scotty for being published in the #1 newspaper in the world, as far as sales and distribution are concerned. I hope like hell you win. "Spot, I'm glad you didn't die." (Purple Mike)

having batteries that read that they're full, but in truth, they just are showing memory and they die during the climb to altitude. Gaffer tape that lets go in freefall, filling your lens with great shots of tape or cable. Tandem masters that refuse to face the sun "because it hurts their eyes." Vomit on the step and side of aircraft from a student that went back inside the aircraft after puking his/her guts out (everytime I look at Sergio, I laugh at that one). Camera step is slippery, side of aircraft is disgusting. Glasses that fit your camera helmet, but they slip as you're tightening the latch in a hurry, and so air crawls under the lens, giving you "eye boogers" on your glasses.

obviously I don't know the particulars of this one, but our town librarian was nearly fired for holding out to allow certain books in our library. Eventually, some of the books were allowed (non mormon, fairly intense attacks on the Mormons in the books) and are once a year featured on the same center aisle rack in the library. Certain books about war atrocities, pedophelia, etc are not allowed either.

nah....that place sucks (for those of us who can't attend) Beautiful. Landing on that lawn would be a ball.

wow..if that's the 5050, not very good at all. Much worse than I'd expect. The auto-setting looks pretty weak as well, but I don't shoot my HC5/7/9 on auto, ever. Never tried, to be honest. Either way...something sure doesn't look right.

The idea wasn't to merely spark recompression, it was to take advantage of the compression artifacts. Now thinking about it I think you'd need to rotate it other than a 90 degree interval. What are all those choices I've seen asking which codec to compress with and when I "produce" a video why does it take 1/2h to "encode"? I'm not disputing what you're saying at all, just trying to understand it a bit better. -Michael Those options are seen at output, not ingest, when dealing with most NLE/acquisition systems. If you modify a file, it's no longer the same data, so must be recompressed no matter what. DV, MPEG, AVCHD, whatever...therefore, it takes longer. Some apps have a no-recompression 'smart render' where untouched files don't require recompression, and they go very fast. It's NLE-dependent, however. ALL files that are modified require recompression, even if it's merely shifting the video by one pixel to the right, left, up, or down, because it's now a different file.

Don't feel bad, Mike...dunno that I'd have wanted to shoot you nekkid, wearing my rig or not. Now...if you were female, over 21, and better looking...

eBay is the direction I'd go, assuming it works. Then use an analog to digital converter. Easy, fast, clean.

ENTIRELY lens dependent, Bill. It shoots "decent" web-quality stills, maybe even with some Pshop you might get a reasonable 5x7. It's an interlaced sensor array that processes and then tosses half the information. The attachment is a screengrab from an HC7 with a crummy wide/SD lens, but it's not too bad. It's been recompressed for web, so that doesn't help, but this gives you an idea of what to expect.

LOL, one of my first photos in Parachutist was also credited to the wrong photog, but fortunately he's a friend and so I didn't mind. Submit, submit, submit. And submit more than just pix if you want to get published. I've submitted a lot of content to magazines over the years, of the roughly 600 articles that have been published, I'd bet it represents maybe a third of what's been submitted.

LOL, didn't realize you'd posted here, already posted in Bonfire. Hybrid Pie BTW, that rig looks great on you.